*
Once you heard it, you never forgot the sound it made; a gun being fired, fired into the air, the trees, animals for sport, or people, even, because there was always evil enough for that. Once you heard that pop and the way it echoed off the ground and the sky, bounced through Heaven and down to Hell and you thought for a moment it might hit you, you never forgot how it sounded when it was shot off and when it landed and the echo whispered for a rescue.
He'd heard it in the jungles of Vietnam, in the firing ranges at Quantico, in the streets and alleys, the quiet homes no one expected would ever shatter like everything else, in the darkest shadows of humanity, and in the places where memories became ghosts.
So when he heard the shot through the phone, he thought of every place he'd once heard that same sound and every face he'd once seen on the receiving end of that deadly lead and said a prayer for whoever met the end of it this time.
"Ma'am?" He spoke, hoping Samantha would hear him over the shouts he heard in the background.
"Miss Leblanc?" He pressed on, more urgently this time.
In certain situations, you remembered routines foremost, because you'd been through the process and it was familiar; the only things you'd have to adapt to were the circumstances, and objectivity was always the biggest concern. You wanted to help strangers, but you'd bleed for the ones you knew, the ones you cared about, the ones whose own lives sustained yours.
So he'd been functioning on procedure until now, on the familiar process of hostage negotiation and it had worked well, always did until it was twisted -- and when that gun fired off, he stopped acting on what he'd once known and started acting on emotion, on instinct, on the feelings you're supposed to turn off when you're talking to a voice carrying a gun on the other line.
He hadn't meant for it to happen, but the adrenaline, the need to know who'd been hurt, what had happened, everything that was going on, overrode all other thoughts and he pressed once more to the voice on the other line.
In a frantic, urgent tone, he spoke the words he hadn't meant to say until he'd seen her on the other side.
"Samantha?"
*
The phone rang again and she flinched as Barry fumbled angry words around the otherwise silent little store she remembered as being safe and quaint and dreamy in Ted's depictions merely days ago. Funny, she thought, how things could change so fast you couldn't decipher one moment from the next.
She hoped he wouldn't make her get up again, as she felt safe in her new position against the small table in the middle of the room; close to the back of the store, close to the front...she was perfectly positioned in the middle, as though she could escape what was to come.
Danny crossed his arms around his knees in front of her, occasionally supplying her with what she guessed was his best reassurance that they would be okay. Barry finally picked up the phone, gun waving unconsciously in wild motions as he spoke to Jack Malone.
Jack...
She liked the name. Liked his voice; deep and laced with a rough exterior, but soothing as well...gentle and quiet and filled with promise.
She watched what happened next unfold like something from a grainy black and white movie in slow motion as the slide projector ate away at the film. It seemed too fuzzy to be really happening, but here it was.
Richard, to her right, moved toward something beneath a chair, something she soon saw to be a gun, which he quietly brought in front of himself. Danny caught the action quickly and his face fell slightly as he rotated his head to meet Barry Mashburn's whose attention had previously been to the closed blinds on the door.
Hearing the motion, he turned away as Richard was moving towards him and Danny jumped up almost innately, as though he'd been prepared for something like this all along, and threw himself between the two men as they both raised their guns.
He tackled Barry to the ground and Richard rolled away and for a moment, you couldn't tell one face from the next until you heard the shot.
The room stilled and you could hear each heartbeat like a bass drum, feel your own pounding a steady, heavy rhythm against your chest in fear and later, relief that you had been spared. It always felt strange to count yourself lucky that you had lived while others died, but you felt it anyway, and Samantha prayed she wasn't luckier than anyone else in the bookstore today.
She only knew when his arm wrapped around her that she wouldn't be the only one walking from this; she only really knew that if she heard Jack Malone's voice once more everything would be all right.
Ted gently pulled her towards him, and she noticed for the first time that no one had been hurt and the bullet had embedded itself in the wall behind the cash register. Danny pulled Barry up along with himself as they both stood. The heat really hit her then as she saw the big stain on Danny's hoodie, a puddle of sweat that had formed where he'd been leaning against the bookshelf the majority of the time. She didn't think she'd want to feel heat again until they were all instructed to leave, that it was safe, and she felt the May sunshine touch her face.
The sun felt the same when it hit her skin and she wasn't sure she expected it to be any different, but she appreciated it, she supposed, a small fraction more than she had when she'd woken up this morning.
Ted's arm suddenly wasn't around her anymore and she searched in the chaos that ensued as they were all bombarded by FBI and various other law enforcement personnel, but couldn't find him.
Danny came from seemingly nowhere -- a look of happiness she couldn't understand just yet filling his face -- and quickly guided her to an older agent, taller, slightly broad, dark hair, dark eyes -- eyes that held a sadness and warmth at the same time...eyes, she thought, that had seen too much evil and not enough good; eyes that brought her to him and seemed to say, 'You don't have to run anymore.'
"I'm Agent Jack Malone, " he spoke, a hand wrapping around hers, "we uh -- we spoke on the phone."
He smiled around the statement and it struck her instantly that this was the man she had met on the street...the man that had been finding her dreams. This was the man...that could save her.
She returned the grip, replying, "Jan -- uh...Samantha Spade."
He smiled again and pulled her into him and she fell away from the fuzzy memory that had once been her life. His arm went to her shoulder and he pulled her away from the crowd, into a car.
"I've been looking for you."
He spoke with gentle, blunt honesty and something in the way he said it made her chest tighten -- someone had been looking...for her. She had been somehow important enough to be found, important enough to distinguish her from thousands of others who had run away as well. She had been important enough to be given a chance -- a chance to live again and be the Samantha Spade she'd imagined when she was a little girl.
"You found me, " she said lightly, spreading her hands in front of her.
"Your mother contacted me a few days ago, wanted us to find you."
Her hand shook as it tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear.
"My mother?"
He nodded.
"She missed you."
"I missed her, " she replied, barely above a whisper.
"You've been gone a long time."
She looked away, out the window, watched the people leave her view as they pulled away from the chaos. A long time...yes...longer than anyone who'd really been living should be gone. She saw Ted, met his eyes as they left.
"Who's that with Ted?"
"Agent Vivian Johnson. We met Ted last night at your apartment building. He was a little upset when we told him your real name, but he'll be fine, " he tried to reassure her.
She watched Vivian Johnson question her friend and understood with clarity why a lingering detachment still swam in his eyes: he knew her real name and she had lied to him.
*
"Samantha?"
She seemed to test the name as she said it, though she'd been saying it at least once a day to the empty rooms and frozen faces trapped in pictures on her walls in that lonely place that had once been home -- that place where Janet and Samantha Spade had once been mother and daughter.
"Mom?"
The voice sounded familiar and the eyes were the same, but her mother had changed -- changed in all the ways people who lose something do. As though they lose themselves along with the person they lost each day.
The eyes were the same color, but not even close to the pure, loving eyes they had once been. They had been sad, yes, in large part from her father, but big and broad as well...akin to a wide hug that seemed to envelope Samantha completely each time she looked at her.
Her mother had lost that innocence along with her daughter and what remained were two eyes that had once been whole -- two eyes that fell into the darkness as she waited each day for the door to open and her daughter's sneakers to squeak on the tile as she tossed her backpack on the nearest chair.
She had waited for that sound for a decade and it had never come and she hadn't wanted to die without simply knowing for sure what had happened or see the woman her daughter had become.
They moved towards each other with hesitant steps, as though they were learning who the other was all over again. Janet reached out first and pulled Samantha to her, pulled her tighter when her daughter's arms reciprocated the hug and wrapped around her feeble back.
"Don't ever leave, " her mother whispered.
And they cried together.
*
Jack took the liberty of wiping away Sydney Harrison's name from the whiteboard. He had sent Martin and Kathy and a few other agents to get her after they'd gotten her location from a remorseful Barry Mashburn. Jack almost felt sorry for the man, though they'd spoken very little. He could understand the loss the man suffered and could empathize with it, but he shook his head in silent admonishment at what the man had done.
They hadn't understood the meaning behind the $687,000, and there certainly had to be one because a number as exact and even small as that, for hostage takers, had to be rooted in some defining moment from the past.
Maybe one day they would know, but he didn't want to dwell on the technicalities of it anymore. It was dark and he needed to get away from this place. He glanced over at the now empty room where Janet and Samantha had once stood, mere hours ago, embracing like they'd lose each other again if one looked away for only a second.
The closet sentamentalist, he had smiled in spite of himself at the tearful reunion.
He had to leave, had to get away, but he wasn't sure just where to go, so his thoughts wandered as he gathered up some things.
His thoughts wandered to Samantha and the unspoken, undeniable, and almost unbelievable connection he had been feeling to her all along, the connection that had only solidified when he finally saw her and they didn't lose each other again.
*
He'd searched for her and found her and now, even back in her quiet apartment, she wasn't alone.
The crushing weight of emptiness she'd weathered for so long had been relieved when he placed a steady hand on her back and led her slowly into the shaking arms of her mother.
In that moment, she'd been a child again, returned to the world of princesses and dragons and heroes, only this time the dragon had been silenced with words instead of a sword and her hero was a gentle man with sad eyes, reassuring hands and a warm heart.
Jack Malone.
His voice had saved her, his arms had welcomed her and as she stayed the darkness in her silent room, just the thought of him renewed her.
*
He wanted to see the city the way she did, and so he walked.
The fiery heat of the day faded into a balmy night complete with a slight breeze that, when it swirled around him, seemed to liven his step and bolster his soul as he continued, heading to a place procedure told him he shouldn't but every part of him said he should.
Jack had learned, many times over, that often life was better lived when he did what he felt and ignored what he knew.
He felt this. He felt her.
He clutched Samantha's address in his left palm, but it wasn't necessary. The numbers and names and her face and quiet smile were branded so deeply inside they were like a part of him.
This connection to her, it was frightening not because it was so new, but because it wasn't.
He'd carried it with him since he first glimpsed her, seventeen years old with a world of experience captured in that single photograph, but he hadn't recognized its depth until the moment their eyes met and he knew he would feel her forever.
Soulmate.
The word made it's way into Jack's mind, and he turned it over as he continued walking. He wasn't sure where it came from until Vivian's words again echoed inside of him.
We're meant to find her.
Meant to find her...were they? As soon as Janet Spade stepped into his office and pleaded with him to find her daughter, he'd vowed to bring Samantha home.
For her mother.
For himself.
There was no logic or reason he could call upon to explain that he'd known her from the moment he saw her picture and needed her from the first time he heard her voice and saw the loneliness and desperate hope in his own eyes reflected back in hers.
To hell with logic and reason.
He continued through the dimly lit streets of New York City, of his city and hers, and thought that maybe, they'd both been saved today.
*
She opened the door and stopped breathing.
He stood in front of her, tie hanging loose around his neck, a quiet, shy smile crossing his lips, dark eyes searching her own as she tried to slow her racing heart.
"Jack."
"I, uh..." For the life of him, he couldn't think, couldn't find the right words to explain to her his reason for being here.
He didn't have to.
She reached out, watching her own hand in fascination as it closed warmly around his and tugged gently.
"Come in."
He did.
*
Her hand remained wrapped around his as he stepped inside, and maybe it was the warmth of his touch or the light in his dark eyes, but somehow, she knew he was here for more than extra questioning about the hostage situation or her own case.
"You're alone," he observed quietly, glancing around her apartment.
"Not anymore," was her response as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and met his heavy gaze. "Ted and I still have some things to work out, and Mom..it was a lot to take in, you know?" Her voice caught, and she led him to her worn couch.
They sat, both leaning forward as she continued.
"She's staying at a hotel nearby. It's just so overwhelming. Ten years, Jack." Tears pricked her eyes. "She's so different now."
"So are you," he gently reminded her. "I saw you. A picture of you, when you were seventeen. You've both been to hell and back."
The honesty in his voice was almost more than Samantha could take, and a few errant tears spilled over. She wiped them away, hard. "I'm sorry. You don't want to listen to this."
Jack caught her hand on its way to her face, and held it softly between his own. She stared at him, moisture streaking her cheeks, questions rising in her eyes.
"I saw you," he repeated. "I saw you then and I never forgot you. I found you, and I don't want to lose you. So I do want to listen."
It had been so long since someone had looked this deeply into her eyes, her heart, her soul. It had been..forever, and all she could think of was pulling him closer, gripping his shirt and coat and anything she could find, burying her head in his chest as his arms closed around her.
Nothing had ever felt more natural to Jack Malone than sitting in this dark room on this couch, holding this woman to him..this woman who had been broken and put back together far too many times in her young life...a woman who's shattered strength he now held onto as tightly as she held onto him.
She had belonged to him the moment he saw her.
His mind had memorized her before he met, before he knew the love he'd always wanted and she'd been that love in shadows.
His heart had loved her...forever.
And he belonged to her when she breathed.
*
[ end ]